Clinical evaluation of pharmacists' interventions on multidisciplinary lung transplant outpatients' management: results of a 7-year observational study

BMJ Open. 2020 Nov 27;10(11):e041563. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041563.

Abstract

Objectives: Lung transplant (LT) recipients require multidisciplinary care because of the complexity of therapeutic management. Pharmacists are able to detect drug-related problems and provide recommendations to physicians through pharmacists' interventions (PIs). We aimed at assessing the clinical impact of PIs on therapeutic management in LT outpatients.

Design: Data were collected prospectively from an LT recipients cohort during 7 years. A multidisciplinary committee assessed retrospectively the clinical impact of accepted PIs.

Setting: French University Hospital.

Participants: LT outpatients followed from 2009 to 2015.

Primary outcome measures: Clinical impact of PIs performed by pharmacists using the CLEO tool and the Pareto chart.

Results: 1449 PIs led to a change in patient therapeutic management and were mainly related to wrong dosage (39.6%) and untreated indication (19.6%). The clinical impact of PIs was 'avoids fatality', 'major' and 'moderate', in 0.1%, 7.0% and 57.9%, respectively. Immunosuppressants, antimycotics for systemic use and antithrombotic agents had the greatest clinical impact according to the Pareto chart. PIs related to drug-drug interactions (10%) mainly had a moderate and major clinical impact (82.3%, p<0.0001).

Conclusion: Clinical pharmacists play a key role for detecting drug-related problems mostly leading to a change in therapeutic management among LT outpatients. Our study provides a new insight to analyse the clinical impact of PIs in order to target PIs which have most value and contribute to patient care through interdisciplinary approach.

Keywords: respiratory medicine (see thoracic medicine); therapeutics; transplant medicine.

Publication types

  • Observational Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Child
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Lung
  • Lung Transplantation
  • Male
  • Medication Errors
  • Middle Aged
  • Outpatients
  • Pharmacists*
  • Pharmacy Service, Hospital
  • Professional Role
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Young Adult